“Give me a sec before you go.” He deftly dressed, as if taking a woman to bed first thing was a daily occurrence. With a pang she realized it might be. How much did she know about Holden, really?
Enough to know that her brother wouldn’t have become friends with him during his service, much less maintained the bond years later. And she’d watched Holden in action all day yesterday. He was a professional who put justice and safety of all civilians first. Otherwise he would have left her, Marcie and Delilah to get out of the building on their own while he tracked down the culprit.
“Hey.” He was dressed in his white T-shirt and jeans again, and standing next to her. “Where did you go?” So he’d seen her drift off.
“I was thinking about how great you were yesterday. You made sure we were all safe. Don’t you regret not going after the bad guy?”
He frowned, tilted his head. “I didn’t have a bad guy to go after. At least, not in my face. It wouldn’t have mattered though, because whoever it was had already made their way backstage and taken Becky. I want to point out that it’s a good reason to eliminate Becky as the killer, but Selina and Ben might still be involved. I’m sorry Becky got hurt, but all three of you could hav
e been gravely hurt or worse, if there’d been a connected fire. Then we’d have had four casualties instead of one.”
“Said like only an FBI agent can.” She tried to grin but her lips trembled and tears filled her vision. What the heck?
“Hey, come here.” He pulled her to him, crushed her against the broad piece of wall that was his chest. “You’ve been through so much. You’re a trooper—you haven’t so much as complained. Let it out.”
She wasn’t one for spilling tears on a guy’s shoulder, but it was Holden’s shoulder and he was wearing a nice soft cotton T-shirt that felt so comforting under her cheek. “Sorry.” She sniffed.
“Nothing to apologize for. The stress has to come out one way or another.”
The meaning in his words took a heartbeat or two to reach her brain. She pulled back and looked up at him. This close she had to crane her neck back, he was so tall.
“Are you saying that, that—” she pointed at her bed “—was like a stress-relieving ball? I’m not sure how I feel about being compared to a squishy heart-shaped toy.”
His eyes smoldered with a sliver of what she’d witnessed only minutes earlier.
“For the record, I don’t hook up with women I work with, agent or civilian. And if I had any smarts I wouldn’t get involved with my friend’s sister.”
“But?” She realized that it already had become second nature to coax details out of him that she was certain he’d rather keep close, private.
He looked away, and she saw the pulse ticking on the side of his jaw. Its visible, rapid staccato was incongruous to the air of total control and order he projected. When he turned back she saw the emotions that matched in the depths of his dark, dark eyes. Wonder. Passion. Regret?
“What happened did because we’re both attracted to one another and have been through a heck of a lot of dangerous scenarios in the past forty-eight hours. But don’t mistake me, Bella. I’d want you just the same, just as much, if we’d met on a tour bus to Smithsville.” His mention of one of the oldest and most worn-out tourist attractions near Mustang Valley made her giggle. Smithsville was as corny as it got, with a fake Wild West ghost town and cheap souvenirs. Old-fashioned carnival games and rides completed the ridiculous ambiance.
“Smithsville? I haven’t been there since second grade, on a terrible field trip with a teacher who told us she wanted to be a zoo keeper but couldn’t get into vet school.”
“How do you remember those details?” The lines on his forehead deepened with what she’d come to understand as his Get out! expression, when he found whatever she said incredible. Or maybe unbelievable was more like it.
She shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Spencer has the same talent, ever since we were little. He memorized all the commercial jingles and cartoon skits from our favorite shows.”
“You’re correct. Spencer was the best navigator to have in a platoon as he never forgot a landmark. We didn’t need satnav during training when we had Spencer with us.”
“Yup, that’s my brother.” She hoped her light banter hid how much she was moved by his reminder that he’d served the same time as Spencer. She’d always hated Spencer could have faced combat during his military stint. To know Holden, too, had served and risked the same chance of being sent to a war zone froze her insides.
She’d have never met him. And now that she had, she wasn’t thrilled that his job was so dangerous, just like Spencer’s.
Gio, girlfriend. Don’t forget Gio.
“Is Jarvis like that, too?”
“In a lot of ways, yes.” She missed Jarvis, even though he lived in Mustang Valley, too, but on a ranch in the crew quarters. His long days, every day, made him busier than even Spencer. She had a full schedule, too, but at least she had the option of working from home as needed. “Look, I’ve got to get in on the meeting that starts in five minutes or I could be kicked out of the pageant.”
His gaze immediately shuttered and he looked like the security guard she’d met when she checked in. “Keep the door open so that I can have a bead on you at all times.”
“Aye-aye, sir. Or is it roger?”
He didn’t respond but for a growl in the back of his throat. It reminded her of how his voice had gotten deep and rumbly while they made love.
Yeah, she needed to make the video meeting.